Clear, winter sun is streaming through the window in my living room after my reading time during the pre-dawn hours. It has been a time of contemplation, and I’m feeling inspired to share some religious thoughts with you this morning.

I used to be quite zealous about my religion. I really thought that the fundamental system I was in was the “only” way, as I had been taught. But once I really started to examine my beliefs, I realized that wasn’t true.

So for the past two to three years, I’ve done a lot of spiritual searching. I’ve read lots of books. So very many. For a while, I stepped away from Christianity since it literally hurt to be around. (And a little side note…leaving religion doesn’t mean stepping away from God. I certainly never did that.) During this time, I researched spirituality and world religions. I learned an awful lot, and became a much better person for it.

Then almost one year ago, I picked up a book by Yogananda. His autobiography, to be exact. And through reading his work, I finally was able to understand that Christianity wasn’t what hurt me. It was the doctrines and systems that did. It was the interpretations that I had been told were fact, and the literal way I viewed the text.

I’d come to believe that Christianity was myth, and then put it down to study other religions…which, surprise, were also myths. But just because something is “myth,” doesn’t mean that that its stories and symbols don’t point to something true.

I decided that growing close to God was like climbing a mountain. There are many paths to the top, and after leaving Christianity I’d just been circling the mountain, walking up one path after another for a little while before turning back around.

Why didn’t I just return to the path that I’d followed for decades? I had already gone far up the mountain on that path. I knew the way back. But this time, I would follow my heart along with the teachings of Jesus instead of sticking to religious dogma. I would become a “reformer” inside of Christianity instead of leaving it completely. Heterodox, to be sure.

In the book, Walking the Path of ChristoSophia (which I’m loving, by the way), authors Avens and Zelley write, “Carl Jung warns Westerners against looking to Eastern religions to develop their spirituality. He advised those of us who are rooted in Western culture to work with our own cultural symbols which have been shaped by our Judeo-Christian heritage. In the terms of Jung’s analytical psychology, to follow Christ means to commit ourselves to the quest for our own spiritual wholeness.”

And later, they say:

“We must go through Christianity to further develop the symbols and myths of Christian tradition for the renewal and evolution of consciousness in our Western culture.”

I’ve found this way of thinking interesting, and for me, true. My consciousness had been enmeshed with Christianity for so long, and for me, it just “fits.”

I’m so excited to continue learning more and more as I walk down the less-traveled Christian paths. I can dabble here and there. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. It’s not the Orthodox way, or no way at all.

And for this, I am thankful.

This article was originally posted on Nicole’s Substack.